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Tag: Update Geotarget

  • Update Geotarget promotes Prabeer Patankar as head of national sales

    Update Geotarget promotes Prabeer Patankar as head of national sales

    NEW DELHI- Update Geotarget, India’s only regional-focused, narrowcasting TV advertising free-to-air platform, has promoted Prabeer Patankar as head of national sales.

    In his new role, Patankar will be responsible for overall national sales and will report to Update Geotarget MD Sharad Alwe. The announcement also emphasises the company’s objective to enable marketers with effective narrowcast services pan India with their 2500+ hyperlocal channels & set-top box solutions.

    Prior to this, he led the sales for the north and south region. Patankar was instrumental in building the business ground up in the last 10 years for Update, with his 24 years of experience in media sales and prior engagements in reputed media houses such as HT Media, Herald Publications, and Navabharat Press Pvt. Ltd

    Commenting on the appointment Alwe said, “As we look forward to festive & brighter future ahead, we are fast-tracking ‘transformation’ which is true to our DNA over the last 25 years. We are clear on our strategic priorities, strengthening our connections with a growing the universe of clients, agencies, brands, and partners in the marketing ecosystem. To be able to do so, we needed a passionate leader and strong structure within our organization to continue our path to greater success."

    On his advanced role, Patankar said, “I am delighted and grateful to Update Geotarget for giving me this opportunity. With brands adapting their strategy to the post COVID environment, they are focusing more than ever on Geo-targeting. NTO has not made their life easy either, shrinking the actual ‘on-ground channel availability’ of their mainstay channels. I think this is our window, our hyper-local channels are more relevant than ever for advertisers. We should see good traction before this financial year ends.”

  • Update Geotarget enables advertisers to target regionally-curated cable TV channels

    Update Geotarget enables advertisers to target regionally-curated cable TV channels

    NEW DELHI: In this globalised world, hyper-local targeting assumes greater significence for reaching out to the target audience. Contextual and hyper-local targeting of audience through advertising is a trend that no brand can afford to miss. While digital mediums serve this need for brands in the metros and tier I cities, the tier II and tier III regions still remain untouched. Television still remains a preferred medium there.

    We all know that it is not easy to hyper-personalise ads on television. However, Update Geotarget platform has come up with a unique solution with its “Ab Digital Ka Power TV Pe” campaign.

    Update Geotarget founder and managing director Sharad Alwe told Indiatelevision.com: “India is a diverse demographic with 90+ socio-cultural regions, 700+ dialects, and 66 different scripts. Historically, we broad-brush India into HSM and southern languages, but brands which want to communicate with audiences hyper-locally are best served with multilingual messaging for contextual targeting. It has already been accepted that vernacular is important, especially for tier II, there is nothing more powerful than communicating with your target audience in the language they think in.”

    He adds, “Through the strongest and most versatile cable TV channel distribution network in India, the Update Geotarget platform allows marketers to localise their messaging, even at an SCR and district level, so you can be truly hyperlocal.”

    Update Geotarget boasts of an inventory on 2500 free-to-air cable TV channels pan-India, which can allow media planners to slice and dice priority market clusters based on geolocation in all 29 states, 92 SCRs, 440 districts, and top 200 cities, with high availability deep and wide into Tier-2 cities.

    Alwe believes that their product is a perfect complement to TV as an advertising medium.

    He explains: “The challenges with TV advertising are the inability to micro-target, and of course, the costs. Moreover, with the changes post NTO, there has been a significant drop in the availability of satellite channels, as households pick and choose the pay channels they want. We believe that our product offering is a perfect complement to the TV medium, as we are able to use the same ad formats, with the layer of geo-targeting to sets of a highly engaged local audience on regional cable TV channels. A holistic plan with both mediums would drive brand awareness with targeted messaging, delivering excellent ROI for media planners.”

    What makes this proposition even stronger is that while satellite pay channel availability has dropped post-NTO, regionally-curated cable TV channels are mandatory in every cable TV household plan throughout India and Update Geotarget maintains 100 per cent availability in 120 million TV households.

    With the new campaign, created by Mirum, Update Geotarget is trying to reach out to marketing and advertising professionals, brands, media planners and agencies pan-India, and is using digital medium dominantly to promote it.

    “Most of our TG is on social media and other digital platforms, and decision-makers are located in metros/ tier-I cities. Digital was an obvious choice as the group is small but well engaged and connected digitally and socially,” Alwe concludes.

  • The sunny side of corona outbreak

    The sunny side of corona outbreak

    MUMBAI/NEW DELHI: Lunching together digitally; employees taking ownership of their work with a lot of seriousness and passion; and people getting plenty of time to be with their families…

    These are some of the positive outcomes of the impromptu and mostly self-imposed work-from-home system put in place by companies all over India in view of the coronavirus pandemic.

    Across the country, central and state governments are taking measures to limit people from travelling and encouraging companies to offer work-from-home options. Large technology firms were among the first among the lot to switch to remote working for all their staff.

    Indiantelevision.com asked industry experts about their work-from-home measures during this critical time.

    Dineout co-founder and CEO Ankit Mehrotra said: “In the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, we’ve been actively implementing social distancing, sanitisation and even self-quarantine policies for the last two weeks. Our teams across all cities will be working from home until 31 March 2020. Our sales teams have also been advised to focus on virtual training and client support for the next two weeks. In fact, our teams are also having lunch together digitally! In such challenging times, we continue to work together to overcome operational hurdles by leveraging technologies like Google Hangouts, Slack and Google Meets to stay connected virtually and ensure continuity of work.”

    For many, work from home is a completely different experience altogether. There is an overload of screen time, dozens of hangout calls, and a few dozen more WhatsApp groups. However, in these testing times employees are taking ownership of their work with a lot more seriousness, dedication and passion. “The reporting structures are well defined and there is a seamless flow of information because of the SOPs set. We, as founders, have a bird’s eye view of who is working on what and what project is consuming how much time. Ease of allocating time commitments to projects is easier. More importantly, the world was greener and cleaner this week and team got a lot of time to spend with their families,” says White Rivers Media chief executive officer and co-founder Shrenik Gandhi.

    Big Trunk Communications managing director Bharat Subramaniam thinks that as the coronavirus has taken the world by storm, businesses all over the globe are resorting to innovative ways and acting responsibly to prevent the spread of this infectious disease. He believes that it is their duty as leaders and entrepreneurs to thoroughly understand the risks involved in continuing operations without taking any stern and serious measures.

    “In times when communication mediums have strengthened fourfold with the advent of digital transformation, it has facilitated great opportunities in the WFH model. We follow the "Make Big Happen Everyday" culture and believe in going the extra mile for our esteemed clients in challenging situations like these. All in all, work-from-home has worked well and has been a win-win situation for both employees and employers,” he says.

    According to Alchemy Group chief business officer Pankil Mehta, the COVID-19 crisis has brought a change to everyday routine. However, there is no hindrance in terms of work getting done.

    “Speaking specifically about Alchemy Group, we have consciously invested time and effort in ensuring our technology and processes are such where teams can work efficiently even when they are not sitting under the same roof. However, from a morale perspective, things have slowed down and one can tend to feel a little less productive considering they are at home all day. We, as a team, ensure we maintain daily routines and try and stick to deadlines like any other day in the office. In the current scenario, I have also urged the team to take sufficient breaks and rests throughout the day and most importantly stay safe.”

    There, however, is flip side to it. While there is a lot of buzz about the advantages of work-from-home, such as spending more time with family, focusing on other priorities, and less unproductive travel time, the reality of business seems to be different. People will engage less with each other, critical decisions will be deferred and strategic investments will be reassessed until the impact and the scale of the slowdown is understood in the weeks and months to come.

    According to Update Geotarget chief strategy officer Samarjeet Reen, this time can be utilised to upskill yourself, learn something new about your industry, exercise, read books. And more importantly, practice societal empathy.

    He adds: “We have a very large count of informal blue-collar services and micro/small retailers, which includes home delivery, house maintenance, etc. All of them add to our personal productivity, and they are at extreme risk. While we look after our own health and business, we must ensure that small service providers and retailers get adequate support to deal with containment due to Covid-19, and income sustenance, so they can get back on their feet quicker. Societal empathy and responsibility should be the highest priority, more so for the better-placed industry leadership.”

    In Mumbai, all private corporates and establishments will be completely shut for the next couple of days. Production/manufacturing processes which require continuity may function at 50 percent staff strength. Those who do not comply by the order will face action under section 188 of the Indian Penal Code. In fact, those who flout the ordeal can be jailed for six months or fined, or both.

    On a similar note, the Karnataka government had issued an advisory, asking companies to adopt work-from-home policies whenever possible in view of the COVID-19. In the wake of this, FCA India has asked over 50 per cent of its staff to work from home.

    ITC has asked a certain section of its staff, majorly from the novel coronavirus-affected regions like Maharashtra, Kerala, Delhi-NCR and Bengaluru, to work from home.

    Earlier, Hindustan Unilever asked its 4000+ employees globally to work from home as well. It, in fact, advised on-field sales employees to virtually connect with customers.

    (If you would like to get featured in our range of positive stories during the COVID-19 crisis, reach out to us right away!)

  • Update Geotarget launches digital campaigns to elevate country’s first narrowcasting platform

    Update Geotarget launches digital campaigns to elevate country’s first narrowcasting platform

    MUMBAI: Update Geotarget has launched the digital campaigns #AbDigitalKaPowerTVPe and #MakeAnAdForEveryIndia to reach media planners and marketers who aim to connect with consumers across India, targeted locally through regional, relatable and relevant content.

    #AbDigitalKaPowerTVPe enlightens media planners and brand managers about Update Geotarget’s solution that enables them to reach audiences across the country. With a selection of diverse ad formats on 2,500+ free-to-air cable TV channels, the narrowcasting ad platform delivers the brand message deep and wide with minimum spillover. With the help of its geotargeting platform, Update allows marketers to slice and dice the brand message with high precision. It helps to target the right audience and create effective campaigns from the word go. 

    #MakeAnAdForEveryIndia highlights the significance of personalised messaging and advertising to reach Indians with varied purchasing and consumption patterns in every region. In a diverse country with 700+ dialects and 60+ scripts, Update Geotarget’s platform empowers brands to effectively communicate with their target audiences in the their mother tongue, or the language they think in. With inventory on high quality hyperlocally curated regional content, the platform delivers a highly engaged audience to marketers.

    Only 10 per cent of India’s population lives in the top 10 metros, the majority thriving in rural areas. However, digital literacy is much higher in metros. This points to a gap that has been challenging brands and marketers when they design pan-India consumer engagement campaigns. The campaign thus highlights the uniqueness of every region in India and the need for regional and multilingual approach to engage with consumers.

    Update Geotarget is India’s first-ever narrowcasting advertising solutions agency that has grown to become the only all-India advertising concessionaire for many multi-service operators (MSOs), serving over 120 million households across more than 8,000 towns. 

    Update Geotarget founder and MD Sharad Alwe said: “In India, every region is unique and it is a vast, diverse nation – especially in regions beyond metros. Through our digital campaigns, #AbDigitalKaPowerTVPe and MakeAnAdForEveryIndia, we wish to apprise planners and brand managers about our innovative solutions and ability to reach 500 million individuals.” He added: “With Update Geotarget’s state-of-the-art platform, we connect where the internet cannot. With our inventory of cable channels, we want to target every audience with minimal spillover through narrowcasting.”

    Update Geotarget, with its pioneering solutions in ‘narrowcast’ advertising, bridges the gap via hyperlocal targeting, deep penetration and cost-efficiency. This enables media planners to go beyond metros to cover their target consumer base effectively.

    #AbDigitalKaPowerTVPe and #MakeAnAdForEveryIndia will be displayed on targeted digital platforms. They will direct marketers to Update Geotarget’s solutions to create campaigns with a pan-India reach and hyperlocal targeting, resulting in optimal return on investment.